Study of Photovoltaic Cells Implantation in a Long-Endurance Airplane Drone

Viviana Martinez (1) , François Defaÿ (1) , Laurent Salvetat (2) , Kolja Neuhaus (3) , Michaël Bressan (3) , Corinne Alonso (3) , Vincent Boitier (3)

1 DCAS - Département Conception et conduite des véhicules Aéronautiques et Spatiaux
2 Lycée d’Artagnan (FRANCE)
3 LAAS - Laboratoire d'analyse et d'architecture des systèmes

Applications of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAVs) are expanding for long-endurance mission such as agricultural inspection, fire prevention and many others. Photovoltaic cells can be added to the wing surface and extend the global endurance of the UAV. This paper builds a model of the whole system and estimates the energy savings that can be achieved for different cell technologies and different types of missions. Furthermore, the impact of airplane movement (roll) on the performance of the maximum power point tracking control algorithm(MPPT) is studied.

Mots clés: UAV; MPPT; Photovoltaic; Drone

Domaines: Energie électrique; Autre

Viviana Martinez, François Defaÿ, Laurent Salvetat, Kolja Neuhaus, Michaël Bressan, et al.. Study of Photovoltaic Cells Implantation in a Long-Endurance Airplane Drone. 2018 7th International Conference on Renewable Energy Research and Applications (ICRERA), Oct 2018, Paris, France. pp.1299-1303, ⟨10.1109/ICRERA.2018.8566931⟩. ⟨hal-02061334v1⟩